The Black Dragon Warrior

5. Back In The Castle

"Aurora!" Akira screamed out the name before instantly running in the direction of the scream, wielding his sword on the way. He glanced around the empty area, trying to find the location of the scream, when some disturbance in the forest nearby caught his attention. Without wasting even a second, he ran inside.

At a distance, Akira saw Aurora running away from something as it pounced on her, taking them to the ground.

Aurora struggled against the creature and let out a horrifying scream when it bit down on her shoulder. She was ready to accept her fate, but the creature was pulled off of her.

Akira pulled the creature off her and sliced through its body. He watched the creature turn to dust while panting due to all the running. When he was sure the creature was gone, he turned to Aurora, and immediately, his eyes ran to her bleeding shoulder.

Aurora cleared her throat, trying to pull her torn top with her shaky hands to cover herself, but Akira quickly kneeled down and set his sword aside before pulling her top further down to inspect the bite, after mumbling a quick sorry for his actions.

"You'll be fine. Don't worry." He soothed her when he saw her teary eyes and heard the pounding of her heart.

As Akira tried to stop the blood flow, Aurora eyes wandered behind him, "Akira! Behind you!!" She screamed, but it was too late. Another creature had come up and slashed his back.

Akira fell over Aurora's body in pain and agony. He breathed deeply and pulled himself to stabilise himself with his hands. "Don't stay here," He gasped. "Go back to the graves and tell Eros to get you treated at the castle. Do not look back."

"Who?"

"The heart eyes guy." Aurora immediately nodded and waited for Akira to stand up with his sword in his hands and face away from her to face whoever stood there.

Wasting no time, Aurora dashed out of the woods, not looking back even for a second. She just ran straight and was finally out of the woods in no time. Thankfully, they weren't able to drag her too far.

"Eros!" Aurora screamed for the man, and he appeared just behind her.

"Yes, Princess," His smile immediately flattened when he saw Aurora's state, "I'm sorry." He apologized quickly before pulling her top down to inspect the bite. "This needs to be treated instantly." As Eros tried to grab her wrist and pull her away, Aurora pulled him back.

"No! Akira!" She desperately looked at the quote forest. "He's there alone, and there are weird things inside!"

"Inside the forest?"

"Yes, he's hurt! And there was something like a moving statue. Please save him!"

Eros needed no further explanation. He dragged Aurora over to Prae's grave and made her sit down, leaning against the stone.

"Do not move away, no matter what."

With that, Eros ran off in the woods, also wielding a sword on the way.

Akira let out a loud grunt as his sword clanked with sword of the gargoyle's human form. He could see two more running to him from each side, so he threw off the one from his sword and sliced the one approaching from right and kicked off the one from left.

But during that, other gargoyles stood up to slash the side of Akira's torso with their sword. Blood instantly started gushing out of the cut.

Seeing Akira weaken after the stab wound, a gargoyle got the chance to bite on his shoulder.

Akira screamed. He could feel the part around the bite turning rough like stones. He grabbed its hair and threw it off to collide with a tree and slashed the other two once again as they tried to attack.